


The Inevitable Decline of the No Sad, Big Smile Break-Up Service

by luxover



Series: Pond Ice and the In Between [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 02:29:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11303874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxover/pseuds/luxover
Summary: The crazy part of all this is that the break-up service wasn’t even Mitch’s idea. What happened with the break-up service was this: Mitch spent too much money on useless shit that he didn’t need, like a pair of matching mobster fedoras for him and Auston, and a suit jacket lined with his spare pond hockey jersey, and custom maple leaf printed toilet paper, and he ran out of money to spend on the things that hedidneed, like an education and food and a roof over his head. And then Will Nylander—some sophomore that they met two winters ago while playing hockey at the Staal pond—joked, “I’ll pay you if you break up with my psycho girlfriend for me.”And just like that, a business was born.





	The Inevitable Decline of the No Sad, Big Smile Break-Up Service

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this Adidas ad](https://youtu.be/repfLwivoWM) about a break-up service. Huge thanks to derselbe for the read-through.

Mitch makes it about two months as the sole owner, creator, and maintainer of a one-person break-up service before he finally decides that, if it weren’t for the money, this whole thing would be a waste of his fucking time. There’s a girl chasing him down the driveway at trackstar speed, and she’s throwing things at him, too, like a soda can and a shoe and a remote control, things that actually hurt when they hit him. It sucks, he thinks as he hops onto his piece of shit scooter and prays that it starts up, because Brianna had actually seemed normal when she answered the door. Just goes to show that you never really can tell, Mitch figures, shoving his helmet on and buckling it under the chin with one hand as he drives away. 

“You can’t just do that!” Brianna’s yelling at him. “You fucking—mother _fucker_!” It’s all pretty par for the course; she’s probably upset, all things considered, and so Mitch doesn’t take it personally, just keeps driving and struggles a sheet of paper out of his back pocket so that he knows where to go and who to break up with next. He hopes it's someone sane; people tend to go crazy when they get dumped, which Mitch doesn’t get. He’s never been attached to anyone like that, not to any of his ex-girlfriends or the two dudes he’s hooked up with. The closest he gets to that is with Auston, really, which makes sense because Auston’s the best friend he’s got. 

Brianna throws one last thing at him—a rock, probably, but he’s not too sure because he doesn’t actually see it—and then he’s turning the corner, out of her line of sight as his scooter works hard to get him up the hill.

“Come on, come on,” Mitch says to himself, the engine buzzing loudly and probably about two seconds away from dying. He hopes not; if he has to call Bozie or—even worse—Naz to pick him up near sorority row, he’ll never hear the end of it. He needs a car, or a new scooter or something.

Or maybe he just needs new friends.

The crazy part of all this is that the break-up service wasn’t even Mitch’s idea. What happened with the break-up service was this: Mitch spent too much money on useless shit that he didn’t need, like a pair of matching mobster fedoras for him and Auston, and a suit jacket lined with his spare pond hockey jersey, and custom maple leaf printed toilet paper, and he ran out of money to spend on the things that he _did_ need, like an education and food and a roof over his head. And then Will Nylander—some sophomore that they met two winters ago while playing hockey at the Staal pond—joked, “I’ll pay you if you break up with my psycho girlfriend for me.”

And just like that, a business was born.

Or—well, not exactly just like that, because Mitch isn’t dumb enough to start a crappy business on Willy’s say-so. What _did_ happen, though, is that Mitch and Auston went to a bar after Mitch broke the news to Will’s girlfriend, and Mitch would’ve been feeling kind of like shit about it except for how he had twenty bucks burning a hole in his pocket.

“You should save that,” Auston had said, referring to the twenty. “I mean, like, frame it or something. People do that for good luck, don’t they?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you,” Mitch said, and then he spent it buying drinks for them.

They got drunk, spending a lot more than the twenty, and Mitch doesn’t really remember much of it except for how he woke up the next morning on the beanbag chair in Auston’s room with tons of little Styrofoam balls from inside the chair all over his shirt. Auston wasn't there, but his indentation was still on the other side of the leather, and so he couldn't have gone very far; Mitch eventually found him in the living room drinking red Gatorade out of a washed-out jelly jar, and the two of them sat there and stared mindlessly at the television screen for a few hours before deciding they wanted food.

The rest of it—deciding to turn Willy’s break-up into an actual business with a name and everything—sort of just… happened. When the two of them finally stumbled out into the sunlight, unshowered and hungry, they saw that _No Sad, Big Smile Break-Up Service_ had already been spray painted on the side of Mitch’s scooter, declaring it a business. 

“So let it be written,” Auston had deadpanned, slipping sunglasses onto his face.

Mitch just shoved him and climbed into the passenger side of Auston’s Civic.

 

Mitch gets back to his apartment after a long day only to find that Auston is out, and instead, Willy and Dylan are sitting on his couch, playing Mario Kart Battle on the Wii. Dylan takes one look at him, at his disheveled hair and the fresh cut over his eyebrow, and he deadpans, “Rough day at the office?” He’s not even so much as smiling, but Mitch knows him, and he knows that Dylan is an asshole. Mitch knows a chirp when he sees one.

“Oh, ha ha,” Mitch says, tossing his keys on the small table next to the door and heading into the living room. “You’re just jealous because I'm making bank.”

“Yeah, but you ride a second-hand scooter, so,” Dylan points out, and he pauses the game without first warning Willy; Willy, for his part, doesn’t really seem to care. “And I really don’t have any interest in the Be Free Break-Up Service,” he adds.

“I thought it was the No Worry, Chicken Curry Break-Up Scooter,” Willy says.

“Actually,” Mitch feels the need to point out, “it’s the No Sad, Big Smile Break-Up Service, and business is booming.” And, yeah, it’s not an _ideal_ name, but Drunk Mitch does things that are out of Sober Mitch’s control, and that’s that. He sits down in one of the secondhand armchairs, and as he brushes his hair back to fit under a spare cap that's lying around, he fixes them with a look like he just won the argument.

Dylan doesn’t seem to realize that, though, because he laughs and repeats the name to himself, just says, “The No Sad, Big Smile Break-Up Service.” 

“You know what?” Mitch says. “You two idiots can laugh all you want, but I have made more money in this past week than Willy has made ever.”

Willy says. “How would you know?”

“I’ve known you for like two years, and you’ve never once had a job,” Mitch says, digging an extra Wii controller out from behind his back. He thinks he remembers Auston looking for it, and so he places it out in the open on the coffee table and hopes it doesn’t get lost again.

“Well, I’m a student still,” Willy says, and Mitch waves a hand at himself because he’s a student, too. “I don’t have a work visa?” Willy tries, like he’s unsure as to whether or not that’s an okay response.

“You’re just lazy,” Dylan says. Willy doesn’t argue it, and Mitch doesn’t defend him; it _was_ a rough day at the office.

“What are you even doing here?” Mitch asks, because they don’t live there, and Mitch definitely never gave them a key; he has a hard enough time dealing with Auston constantly losing his own copy. “Is Auston home?”

“He was, but then he went to class,” Dylan says, and he unpauses the game. It’s a good second or so before Willy even notices and picks his controller back up, but if he cares at all, he still doesn’t show it.

“Oh, right,” Mitch says, and he feels like an idiot for not realizing it, because Auston was up all night pretending to cram for an Econ test while really just treating Mitch’s pack of French curves like throwing stars. Mitch slouches down in the chair more, leaning his head back against the cushions, and then, with his eyes only half open, he asks, “How long have you been here?”

He’s not complaining, it’s just—some chick threw a fucking remote at him; he thinks he deserves a bit of time to himself after that.

“It’s not like we can hang in my room,” Willy points out, avoiding the question. “My roommate literally dries his leg hair with a hair-dryer; it’s weird.”

“Yeah, that is pretty weird,” Mitch agrees, because he’s met the guy, and the leg hair thing is hardly even scratching the surface. “Alright, well, I’m gonna go take a nap, I guess. Leave the door unlocked for Auston if you leave.”

“Sure,” Dylan says, and before he can say anything else, or ask if Mitch wants to play the winner, Mitch half rolls and half stumbles out of the armchair, and heads down the hall to his bedroom.

He leaves his jeans in a pile on the floor, but doesn’t even bother to take his books and pens off his bed before face-planting, just shoves everything haphazardly to one side and then collapses on top of the sheets. He’s got a project he should be working on that night, and so after a minute or so of psyching himself up to move again, he digs his phone out of the pocket of his jeans and sets his alarm for an hour and a half later. And then, after a second of thinking about it, opens up a blank text message.

 _To: Auston_  
_good luck on your exam. if it sucks i'll break up w your prof for you at a discount_  
_Sent: 4:31pm_

He doesn’t hear back right away, meaning Auston is probably busy, or maybe even still taking the exam, and so Mitch just strips off his jeans and tosses an arm over his eyes, and he slips into sleep sometime before Auston writes back.

 

Auston finally makes it home a little after seven. Dylan and Willy are gone, having ducked out about an hour before, and so Mitch is using the quiet time to do his homework, his drafting supplies laid out all over their kitchen table. Technically, the assignment is part of a larger project where he’s supposed to coordinate with some of his classmates to create a line of suburban model homes, but really he’s just using it as an excuse to draw plans for the mansion he and Auston are going to live in once they graduate and win the lotto.

Auston lets himself in, hollering out a _thanks_ to Mitch for leaving the door unlocked, and then starts to make up some excuse or another as to why he forgot his house keys.

“We didn't just meet yesterday,” Mitch says. “If you don't drive, you forget your keys. You're actually an idiot.”

“Yeah, well,” Auston says. “S’why I have you,” and Mitch waits until Auston’s looking at him before he exaggeratedly rolls his eyes. Pros and cons of living so close to campus.

Mitch turns back to his work and hears Auston toss his bag on the floor by the hall closet before walking through the house, into his bedroom and back out. It’s ambient noise that Mitch is used to, and tunes out with ease.

“I like it,” Auston suddenly says, looking over Mitch’s shoulder, and normally Mitch hates when people do that, but it’s different because it’s just Auston, and Auston never hassles him over the stuff that matters. “Is that a rink in the middle?”

“Yeah,” Mitch says, and then he pulls back a little, studies his own drawing with his head tilted to one side. “We’re gonna have a sick house.”

“You better not make your bedroom bigger than mine,” Auston says, and Mitch just scoffs. He doesn’t respond, because he does know what he’s doing, and so Auston loses interest, wanders around opening their cabinets and looking for food. “Have you eaten yet? You wanna hit up Chipotle or something?”

“If you want. Or make spaghetti,” Mitch says. “I think we still have some of my mom’s meatballs in the freezer.” He’s been hungry since he got home, honestly, but hasn’t made anything because he’s super fucking lazy, and knows Auston will usually do it for him.

“We don’t have any pasta,” Auston says, which is a lie, and so Mitch sighs, puts down his protractor and heads over to the cabinets. Auston just shoots him a look like he’s trying not to laugh, and says, “No pants today?”

“What?” Mitch looks down at his boxers and then rolls his eyes. “Oh. Yeah, I took a nap.”

“Rough day of breaking hearts,” Auston says, not really a question, and he leans back against the kitchen counter, watching Mitch rifle through the cabinets for food.

“You don’t even know,” Mitch says. He finds the spaghetti behind an old, sticky maple syrup bottle that probably should be in the fridge, and pulls it out triumphantly. Then, turning back to Auston, he asks, “How’d your test go, anyway?”

“Alright, I guess,” Auston says with a shrug. “I talked to my academic advisor to see if we could transfer Classics credits over from the community college next semester, though.”

Mitch pulls a face because Auston is an Econ major—and a shitty one, at that—and doesn’t like to read, anyway. He asks, “Why would you want to take a Classics class at all? Those things are impossible to read.”

“Because we could take it with Eric, dude,” Auston says, laughing. And that— 

“Oh,” Mitch says. He forgets sometimes that the people at the pond have, like… actual careers and stuff. Not that Eric doesn’t seem smart or anything, but he’s a Staal brother and Mitch only ever really sees him when he’s playing hockey, skating and checking people and can-opening Jordy just because he can. It just seems weird to remember that, during the day, Eric is a professor, or that DZ is actually trusted enough to go into a fire to save people, or that Sid doesn’t just live and breathe hockey, he lives and breathes some kind of boring-ass law, too. 

“Yeah,” Auston says, and then he justifies, “I mean, I haven’t finished my requirements—”

“Don’t remind me,” Mitch interjects.

“—and Skinny says he passed the class, no problem, and he’s kind of an idiot, so,” Auston finishes. Then, when a beat of silence passes, he shrugs and says, “I dunno, just an idea.” 

Mitch thinks that the drive out to the community college probably won’t be worth it just for the easy A and the chirping rights, but if Auston wants to do it, he’s in, and so he says, “The Classics have always been a passion of mine.”

The way Auston smiles makes it worth it.

 

The next morning, Mitch rolls out of bed about twenty minutes before class starts and slips on shorts and the _Suns Out, Guns Out_ tank he stole from Hallsy before stumbling barefoot out into the kitchen. He’s pretty sure his flip-flops are somewhere in the living room, and on his way to go look for them, he opens two packs of Pop-Tarts and puts all four pastries in the toaster.

Auston finds him as he’s looking under the couch, and says, “Morning.” He’s holding out the old leather flip-flops that Mitch is searching for on two fingers, and looks barely awake. “You left these in my room last night.” 

“Awesome,” Mitch says, grabbing them and dropping them to the floor to slip on. “I put Pop-Tarts in for you.”

Auston makes a wordless sound of approval and rubs at his eye with a closed fist. There’s a pillow crease running down the side of his face, and he’s wearing some old 5k race shirt backwards, making him look like a total dweeb.

“You look great,” Mitch tells him. “Like a champion.”

“Fuck off,” Auston says, smiling, his voice still rough with sleep. The toaster pops as Mitch is scrolling through break-up request emails on his phone, trying to find what he needs. Auston disappears into the kitchen and comes back a minute later with the Pop-Tarts held in two paper towels.

Mitch takes the ones that are offered to him, and still going through his inbox with one hand, he brings the Pop-Tarts up to his mouth, taking a bite after using his cheek to push the paper towel out of the way.

“Thanks,” he says, the word muffled because he’s still chewing, and Auston lazily waves his comment away, and drops himself down onto the couch.

“Wanna get lunch with me and Hyman today?”

“Maybe, yeah,” Mitch says, shrugging. “If I have the time. I dunno, text me when you’re going.” 

“Alright,” Auston says, and he pulls his feet up on the couch, blinks slowly a few times as he tries to wake up. He doesn’t have class for another hour and a half, so honestly, Mitch doesn’t know what he’s even doing out of bed. “We can wait for you, if things aren’t crazy.”

“Nah, don’t bother,” Mitch says. “I’ve got to dump a dude on…” He looks down at his email. “Bay Street. So I’ll just get that done and meet you tonight at trivia?”

“Dump a dude,” Auston says, maybe mockingly but probably not. “Who the hell lives out on Bay, anyway? That’s, like, all townies.”

“Dunno,” Mitch says with a shrug, but that’s just because he really only read the _where_ part of the email. He shoves the last of his Pop-Tart in his mouth. “But I’ll text you,” he says around a mouthful. 

Auston walks him to the door, half carrying all of Mitch’s shit while Mitch crams it all into his backpack. Everything’s crushed, for sure, and he’s lucky if there’s a pen in there somewhere, but thankfully his Data Visualization professor doesn’t really deal in handwritten paperwork; none of his professors do, really, even in his core studies. Mitch guesses it’s really only a matter of time before he forgets how to write.

“We should take a calligraphy class,” Mitch calls out as he cuts across their front lawn. His scooter is parked awkwardly against the curb, crammed between Auston’s Honda Civic and the trash can, which they just leave out because they don’t know when garbage day is. When Mitch turns around, Auston has his shirt mostly off, the collar still looped around his neck as he twists the tee so it’s not on backwards.

It's a lot of skin.

“Would you get the fuck out of here, already?” Auston says with a smile, and Mitch salutes.

“Places to be,” he says, straddling his scooter, and Auston rolls his eyes.

 

Class is awesome and his major rules, and although Mitch doesn’t end up finding a pen in his bag, some girl named Bre who apparently knows the Nuge lends him one, so it all works out. He’s even ahead of schedule by the time he gets to the edge of campus, which is good because that means he’ll be able to break up with this random dude and still have time to jerk off in the shower in their empty house before trivia.

Which isn't to say that Mitch wouldn't jerk off if the house was _full_ , but it makes things a little less weird in his head, considering he's usually jerking it to thoughts of the guy he shares a house _with_. Not that Auston knows, or will _ever_ know, and not that Mitch expects this infatuation to last much longer than the three years it's already been going, but still. He's got to draw the line somewhere. Auston would probably appreciate it, actually, if he knew.

Mitch pulls down Bay Street and parks outside number fifteen. He looks at the house and tries to figure the odds of getting his ass beat by the guy who lives inside, but it's a crapshoot, really, and it's not like whoever’s inside is going to be any bigger or badder than Tanner Glass, who tried to fucking punch Mitch’s lights out last winter. Plus: twenty bucks, and if things go sour, he’ll charge a hassle fee.

The house is sort of exactly what Mitch expected from a townie, old and run-down, the roof a little sloped in the middle, with two lawn chairs and a flattened soccer ball out front. There are some empty IPA beer bottles out, too, like it’s a townie’s pretentious version of a frat house. Mitch doesn't really remember what the email he got said—the message he’s supposed to deliver, or the _it’s not you_ , whatever—so he digs out his phone and pulls up his inbox.

The email, when Mitch finds it, is mostly blank, just a quick sentence of _I want your best break-up material_ , followed by four dollar signs.

For a long second, Mitch frowns down at his phone.

It’s unbelievable. People really don't take him as seriously as they should. Maybe Mitch should start vetting the jobs he takes, just to make sure the people he helps recognize the energy he puts into this shit. Probably would help to make sure he's not dealing with any complete whack jobs, too. He should've been doing that since Willy’s psycho ex-girlfriend, honestly, because she had draped herself all over Mitch, crying and talking about how she already started looking at houses in Calgary, because she knew how important family was to Willy. She clocked Mitch one pretty good, too, right on the jaw, although she claimed that was just an accidental byproduct of the hysteria.

Either way, she really was the worst, and it's no wonder Mitch drank enough that night to turn one bad idea into a business.

The door opens, and Mitch looks up.

“Hey, Marns,” Matt Martin says, a relaxed smile on his face as he leans against the door jamb, because of course this is his garbage house, _of course_. Only—

It doesn't really make much sense, actually.

“What.” Mitch is still piecing things together.

Matt, still smiling slightly, waves his hand in a _get on with it_ gesture.

“Did you just,” Mitch starts, and then he stops himself. “But you're single.”

“Am I?” Matt asks. At the pond, he’s sort of like Mitch’s older brother, in a way, and sometimes, Mitch will look at him and wonder if this is how Dylan feels about his older brother, too—a little bit like he’s funny, but mostly just like he needs to be humored. “Or am I _going to be_?”

That's when it all clicks into place, really.

“Did you just do all this so you could fuck with me?”

“Yeah,” Matt says. “So let’s go, I wanna hear the spiel.”

“No,” Mitch says. “What the fuck.” And then he says it once more with feeling as he heads down the front steps. “No.” He shakes his head as he goes. “You’re dead to me.”

“At least bring me lunch next time,” Matt calls out to him.

“There’s not gonna _be_ a next time,” Mitch says, although if Matt is paying him to show up, honestly, there probably will be. Mitch is pretty fucking poor, he recognizes this. He straddles his scooter and jams his helmet on his head. “I'm keeping the twenty bucks! And your hair looks terrible short!”

“Easy,” Matt says, like that's taking things too far. “Wanna at least come in for a beer before you go?”

Mitch heaves out a sigh. He doesn't know where he finds these people, except for how he knows exactly where he finds these people: Marc Staal’s pond every winter. Mitch’s first mistake was going, and his second was going back.

“Yeah, I guess,” Mitch says. And then as a peace offering, he adds truthfully, “And I actually like your hair like this.” 

“Thanks,” Matt says.

Mitch gets off the scooter.

 

Mitch makes it to the bar that night just in time for the first round of questions. He passes handwritten signs for the _Quizzards of Waverly Place_ team, and for _Trivia Newton John_ , and _Bed Bath and Beyoncé_ , but doesn’t see his boys. They’re usually _Nine Inch Males_ , which is admittedly terrible and started the one time they invited Marchy and Segs out; the two of them had laughed at the joke for like six solid minutes, until finally Mitch handed their sheet in with that name on it, just to shut them up. But then their team won, and they’ve placed in the top three every single trivia night since then, so Mitch unanimously decided they’d keep it. 

At any rate, Mitch doesn’t see the boys.

He does another lap of the bar, grabs a drink from the bartender and waves to the MC before he finally sees what is unmistakably, undoubtedly, the back of Auston’s dumb head. A lot of guys made it out tonight: Dylan, Skinner, Davo, Jared, Beau. Willy’s not there yet, but he should be soon. Mitch walks over, shouldering Auston to the side as he sits down in the empty seat next to him, and points to their team sign: _In Dog Beers, I’ve Only Had One_.

“What the hell is this?”

“I know,” Auston groans, clearly not happy either. “But you weren’t here, and Dylan let Davo pick the name.”

“This is exactly why we don’t give Dylan a vote,” Mitch points out, and Auston clinks his pint against Mitch’s in sad agreement. “Besides, I didn’t even realize Davo was back from Summer at Sea.”

“I told you he was back like sixteen times,” Dylan interrupts. “We had a whole conversation about it, and then _you_ said _you_ missed him so much, we should let him name the team this week.”

“That doesn’t sound like me,” Mitch says, looking to Auston.

“Yeah, no,” Auston agrees. “Mitch doesn’t know how to miss people.” 

“I could try, though,” Mitch offers, and then to Dylan he adds, “You’d just have to leave for a couple of months, eh?”

“Fuck off,” Dylan says, trying not to smile, and Mitch shrugs, tries not to smile back. Davo just watches the two of them with a look on his face like he’s not entirely sure who let him out of the house. Auston looks like that most days, too, and usually forgets to bring his keys with him on top of that, but he’s got Mitch to let him back inside, so it’s all good. 

Davo finally says, “So I take it not much has changed.”

“Not really,” Mitch says. What Davo means is that Mitch and Dylan are still chirping each other. It’s what they do, though, and he doubts that’ll ever change, even though there’s no heat behind any of it anymore. It’s sort of like a game, the nagging and the insults. “It’s good to have you back, though.”

“Good to be back,” Davo says, and then he glances over at Dylan before smiling down into his beer. Mitch rolls his eyes. They’re unbelievable. “Anyway, how’s your thing going? The break-up thing?”

From the other side of the table, Mitch hears Jared moan, “No, don’t.”

“What?” Skinny asks him. “I like a good monologue.”

“Well, since you _asked_ ,” Mitch says loudly, just as the MC starts talking. Beau takes this as his cue.

“He did ask, but he didn’t mean it,” he says. “Now shut up; Guddy’s announcing the categories.”

Mitch looks around the table for something to throw. There’s nothing that won’t take an eye, so he settles for flipping Beau the bird instead, and then turns to Auston. He kind of wants to know how Auston’s classes went today, and where he went for lunch with Hyms, but Auston’s more or less already checked out. He takes this trivia shit real seriously, and his eyebrows are pinched as he listens to Guddy read over the instructions they all already know.

Auston’s such a nerd. Mitch sort of hates how much that does it for him.

“Hey,” he says to Auston. Auston is already smiling when he turns, and Mitch tries to flick him in the cheek. Auston jerks back, grabs at Mitch’s wrist.

“Nope,” Auston says, laughing. “Do I know you, or do I know you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mitch says haughtily, and Auston jostles his shoulder.

“How’d that thing today go?”

Mitch rolls his eyes. “It was just Matt, fucking with me,” he says, and while it might not make sense to anyone else, Auston hears a whole story in that.

“What an idiot,” he says. “Least you got paid, though, right?”

“Hell yeah,” Mitch agrees. “Your next one’s on me.”

And in the background, Guddy says, “Joe, Nick, and Kevin are all members of what band, which was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy in 2009?”

“Jonas Brothers,” Skinny says to their group, without missing a beat. And then to defend himself, “What? I have four sisters.”

“Right,” Jared says. “Because that makes it better.” 

“It _should_ ,” Skinny says, and then he starts laughing. “Come on, the first question is always a gimme!”

Guddy speaks out over the microphone, says, “You have until the end of this song to hand in your answer,” and then Drake starts up.

“Hey,” Auston says, nudging Mitch. “Wanna share some nachos?”

“Uh…” Mitch says, thinking about it. He knows the menu to his place by heart, but still reaches over to the center of the table and snags one of the laminated specials sheets. “Kinda wanted some wings. Isn’t it fifty cent wing night?”

“Both, then?” Auston asks. “Maybe a dozen buffalo and some—”

He doesn’t get to finish his thought, because that’s when Willy shows up, sliding all nonchalantly into the one open seat like everyone’s not zeroing in on the giant hickey high on his neck.

“Hi, and you’re all just jealous,” Willy says preemptively, and everyone takes that as their cue to lay into him. Willy just laughs it off, says they’re just having fun, him and whoever.

Mitch hasn’t had that kind of fun in a while. He’s got his own hangups, he knows, especially considering it’s not like Auston’s pining for him right back. Auston brings people home all the time, and so Mitch really should just get over himself.

There’s a pretty girl at the bar that he saw during his walk-through. Her name is Stephanie and they take Introduction to Structural Design together. Mitch looks over towards the bar and finds her, and when she sees him looking at her, she smiles, and Mitch smiles back, lamely waving two fingers at her while the rest remain wrapped around his pint glass.

“She’s hot,” Auston says, seeing the interaction. He’s smiling at Mitch in the same way he _always_ smiles at Mitch, soft and open and like he really means it, and like always, Mitch wants to kiss him.

Mitch forgets about the girl and decides to get trashed instead.

 

He wakes up the next morning with a splitting headache, not entirely sure how he got home. He moves to pat down his pockets for his keys, but his pants are gone, so. At least he is in his own home; that bodes well.

He doesn’t really remember much from the night before. He remembers losing at triv and not getting a discount on their bar tab, and he remembers blaming the team name for that. He remembers talking with Stephanie and meeting her friends, but not doing anything about the way she put her hand on his arm. Remembers the way Davo would lean against Dylan’s shoulder, like he didn’t realize he was doing it, and how Dylan turned his plate to make it easier for Davo to sneak some fries.

Mitch remembers being a little jealous over it, even though there wasn’t anything to be jealous _over_.

 _Listen_ , Mitch had said when Dylan was up handing in their answer. He had leaned across Auston to place one hand on Connor’s shoulder. _That shit never works out, and maybe I’m bitter because I see it every day, but love is a lie._

 _It’s not a lie!_ Skinny objected, and Beau had scoffed.

 _You’re literally in love Matthews,_ he pointed out to Mitch. _Literally in love._

Auston had just laughed and threw his arm around Mitch’s shoulders, and Mitch didn’t really think much of it other than how much he liked it. Now, lying mostly naked in his own bed, Mitch wonders if Auston knew it was true.

It’s kind of embarrassing.

Mitch figures the only way to keep going is to keep going, and so he steadfastly ignores anything that might’ve happened last night and hollers out loud enough to hear from the other rooms, “Auston! I’m dying, get me a Gatorade.”

A minute goes by and Mitch thinks about yelling again, but then Dylan inexplicably appears shirtless in the open doorway, with two yellow Gatorades in hand. He kicks the door shut behind him with one bare foot.

“Yellow?” Mitch asks, rather than asking the obvious. “Really?”

“All you had left,” Dylan says, his voice rough. He looks like he just woke up. “Don’t blame me for your poor planning.”

Dylan tosses one of the Gatorades over and then faceplants on the bed next to Mitch. 

“What are you even doing here?” Mitch says.

Dylan doesn’t answer, just says, “Go fuck yourself, Marns,” and shoves Mitch over to make more room for himself.

He wonders what time it is. It’s pretty fucking bright out, even through the blinds, and he feels like he should probably stay awake except for how he doesn’t want to. So instead, he shoves his face between the edge of his pillow and Dylan’s shoulder, blocking out all the light.

“You going back to sleep?” Dylan asks.

“Mm,” Mitch says, vaguely an answer, and then he’s gone, out like a light.

He does hear one thing, though, or at least he thinks he does. He thinks he remembers hearing Auston walk in, although maybe he dreamed it; none of it really makes any sense.

In his dream, Auston said, “I thought you and Connor were…?”

“We’re not,” Dylan replied, and then there was a long silence.

“You better not be fucking around with him.” Auston’s voice, Dylan’s laugh.

“We’re _definitely_ not,” Dylan said, and that was it. It left Mitch wondering when Auston had become so close with Connor, and then the dream faded, or Mitch just fell back asleep.

The house is empty when he wakes up, but there’s Advil on his bedside table, and Mitch swallows them without much thought.

 

The beauty of owning a scooter is that it means parking downtown is a breeze. Mitch spends a good chunk of the afternoon home alone on the couch, but the second he feels sort of like a real person again, he heads out to dump somebody in one of the busier neighborhoods where street parking is nonexistent. 

Auston texts him as he’s heading out to his scooter. 

_From: Auston_  
_You alive?_  
_Received: 3:14 p.m._

 _Hey do you have Emily’s number from last night? I think that’s her name_  
_Received: 3:15 p.m._

 _The chick with the crazy nails_  
_Received: 3:15 p.m._

And Mitch just—he’s a fucking asshole, he knows he is, but he doesn’t respond. He’s tired and hungover and crabby and—and Mitch has been half in love with Auston since they met, and probably whole in love with him since the semester started. Mitch doesn’t want to help Auston hook up with Stephanie’s friend. So sue him. He knows it’s not buddies, but he can’t help it.

Mitch tucks his phone into his back pocket and straps his helmet on. He feels like shit physically and also like shit emotionally, and now at least he figures the dumpee can feel like shit, too. 

The girl cries. Mitch just feels worse, to be honest, for having made her feel awful, too, but all he can do is pat her on the shoulder twice and then leave. Misery loves company, but Geno’s cafe is just down the street, and Mitch needs coffee.

He needs a new fucking job, is what he needs.

Samovar, when he walks in, is busy but not packed. Lu’s lounging in an armchair, wearing his dumb hat and reading a book at his usual corner table, and Mitch gives him a wave as he walks up to the counter. Lu waves back, but Mitch doesn't make any more of an effort to say hi; Mitch doesn't actually know him, just knows _of_ him, how he used to tend goal at the pond until he wigged out one day and said he was moving to Florida, and then never moved but also never went back to the pond. 

Glancing towards the counter, Mitch sees Geno, which is a plus. All the baristas are nice or whatever, but Mitch knows Geno well enough that Geno usually takes pity on him as a poor college student and gives him free food. 

Not great for business, but a class act, for sure.

“Hey G,” he says when he’s at the register, and Geno smiles wide and unrestrained.

“Mitchell!” he says. He only says it because Mitch hates his full name, but coming from Geno, Mitch doesn’t actually mind. Everyone loves Geno. “Look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Mitch says drily. “I think I drank my body weight in beer last night.”

Geno throws his head back as he laughs. “You need come out drinking with Russians. You don’t know drunk until you see Ovie with vodka.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Mitch says. He looks up at the menu board and then over to the pastry case. There’s no one behind him in line, which is good because he has no clue what he wants. He sort of wants everything; sort of wants nothing. Sort of just wants to go home and fall asleep on the couch next to Auston as they watch _It’s Always Sunny_ on Netflix.

“I’m know just the thing,” Geno says, one finger up like wait a minute. He grabs a clear cup and then turns around, messes with whatever the fuck baristas mess with. When he turns back, he slides Mitch a drink and a rectangular slice of cake on a small white plate. Geno says, “I’m Russian, I’m not get hungover—”

“Right,” Mitch says with a snort.

“—but Sid have one glass of wine and headache for weeks. He say, coffee good for keep him awake, and coconut milk have electrolytes.”

“Oh,” Mitch says. He doesn’t really know if that’s true or not, but Sid seems to find twenty-five usable hours in every day, so Mitch isn’t going to question it. Instead, he says, “And that?” He points to the cake.

“Is just _Ptichye Moloko_ , Russian dessert,” Geno says. “Marshmallow, chocolate on top, sometimes cake on bottom. Very good, need opinion on if to sell here.” 

“Oh,” Mitch says again, this time more positively. He considers himself a connoisseur of the cake world. He grabs the plate and his coffee and slides a little down the way to sit at the bar-top, where he can still talk to Geno but not be in the way of the register. “I feel like maybe if there’s one job I’m meant for, it’s this right here. Professional cake-tester.”

“Yeah?” Geno says. “Not Break-Up Service?”

Mitch rolls his eyes. “No, that’s just—I don’t even know what the fuck that is.”

He holds his hand out to wordlessly asks for a fork. Geno hands it over and then pulls out a rag from somewhere within his apron; the countertop is immaculate, but Mitch watches him wipe it down anyway.

“Maybe you need Shark Tank,” Geno suggests. “Get big money, make big business.”

“No way,” Mitch says around his first bite of the Russian whatever. “I don’t even know how much longer I can keep this up.”

“Hard work?” 

“Not really,” Mitch says. “I like the money, but I hate making people sad. This is really good, by the way.”

“Better with vanilla cake on bottom, or just as is?”

Mitch takes another bite and thinks it through before saying, “I dunno. Whatever’s easiest, I guess. I’m just in it for the marshmallow.”

“Me too,” Geno replies. “If break-up so bad, why not quit? Work here instead.”

“Are you serious?” Mitch squints at him. He’s not sure he’d trust himself with that much responsibility, and also feels like this is all a little too fortuitous, how the second he’s ready to quit the job he has, another one lines itself up.

“Yeah, am serious,” Geno says. “Need new barista for afternoon shift. Sid get angry when I’m work all day and night.”

“Like he’s one to talk,” Mitch says, and Geno shrugs like, _What can you do?_

Mitch’s phone buzzes then, skittering across the tabletop. He can see the first half of the text light up on the lock screen.

 _From: Auston_  
_Bringing home A &W. Do you want...._  
_Received: 4:27 p.m._

Geno raises an eyebrow when he sees Mitch turn his phone over, so the screen faces down.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Geno says, as if he means, _Everything_.

“It _is_ nothing,” Mitch insists. 

Geno shrugs and then darts his eyes towards the door when the bell goes off, signalling another customer walking in. He says to Mitch, “Am just used to more: _Auston this,_ and _Auston that_ , and _Auston best_. You fight?”

“No,” Mitch says honestly, because they _didn’t_. It’s not Auston’s fault that he doesn’t want to get down with Mitch’s get down.

Geno gets caught up taking the next order, though, and doesn’t follow up on the Auston front. Mitch is not-so-secretly glad about it, and by the time Geno makes his way back, he seems to have forgotten what they were talking about completely, and Mitch doesn’t go out of his way to remind him.

They talk about pond upgrades instead. Mitch feels good by the time he leaves.

 

It’s dark out by the time Mitch makes it home, but all the lights are on in their house because Auston’s an idiot who doesn’t understand how electric bills work.

“Hey,” Mitch calls out as he’s closing the door behind him, and Auston’s head pops up from behind the couch.

“Hey,” he says. “I texted you.”

“Sorry,” Mitch says. “I was—” he waves a hand vaguely, in a way that he hopes doesn’t convey _having an existential meltdown,_ “working.”

“Ah,” Auston says like he gets it, and he probably does. Auston’s good at things like that, at getting Mitch. He sits up on the couch to make room, and even though there’s a perfectly usable armchair right there, Mitch flops down on the couch next to him. Their shoulders press into each other.

“I think I’m done with this shit,” he says, meaning the break-up service.

“Yeah,” Auston agrees. “It was funny while it lasted, though.”

“Yeah. Maybe do a few more and then call it. Geno said I could barista at his place, if I wanted to.”

“No shit?” Auston asks.

“No shit,” Mitch says.

They lapse into silence after that, just the two of them on the couch. Mitch wonders what Auston got up to that day, and so he asks.

“’Choo do?” he says lazily. It barely counts as English, but Auston is used to him by now.

“Not much,” Auston says. “Was hungover as fuck. Tried not to die on the stationary bike, and then you were gone when I got back.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Mitch says, but he doesn’t really know what he’s apologizing for. He feels sort of like this is a big moment for them, or like it should be, but he doesn’t know why.

He thinks about all the best friends he’s had in his life, and how none of them compare to Auston. And that’s not to say that Dylan was a shit friend, or that Davo was, but none of them were _Auston_ , and that’s the point. Mitch used to always know what Auston was thinking, and now all of a sudden it’s like he can’t even begin to guess.

Mitch lets his head flop over on the cushion so that he’s looking over at Auston. Their faces are really close. Auston’s already looking right back, his eyebrows pinched, and Mitch wonders how he’d react if Mitch told him the truth.

“Hey,” Auston says suddenly. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

And Mitch does, he _does_ know that, but he doesn’t think he can handle how Auston would react, and so instead of telling Auston how he feels, he just says, “Yeah, bud. You too, you know?”

“Yeah,” Auston says after a beat. And then, changing the subject, he says, “I wish it was winter.”

Mitch does, too. Winter means hockey, means the boys all out at the Staal pond, means Auston crashing into Mitch on the ice when he scores, both their smiles stretched wide, Auston’s voice in his ear yelling, _Fuck yeah, Marns! That’s it!_ Winter means they carpool, the two of them and their giant hockey bags crammed into Auston’s Civic, thirty minutes each way, late night Timmy’s on the way home, their elbows touching on the center console. Winter means Auston’s hand on the back of his neck as they walk around to the front of the farm house, _Sick fucking pass_ , and his hand on Mitch’s shoulder, shaking him awake as he says, _We’re home, Marns_.

Mitch wishes it was winter, too, but all he says about it is, “We gotta dominate at the ugly sweater party this year.”

“Can’t believe we lost to Mo,” Auston agrees. “He barely even _tried_.”

“Judge forgot to only look at the sweater,” Mitch jokes, and Auston lets out a soft laugh, sitting up to reach the remote.

“I DVR’d the Lakers/Celtics _30 for 30_ , if you wanna watch,” he says, and it feels like a peace offering although Mitch doesn’t know why.

“Make me popcorn,” he demands in an effort to shake off his own weirdness, but Auston just snorts.

Auston always burns it, anyway. Mitch makes the popcorn.

 

Everything’s back to normal in the morning; Mitch thinks it’s because he got a good night’s sleep, but it might be because they have plans to eat at Pizza Nova with some of the New York guys, which is always a bit of a bizarre time. Sort of like watching Animal Planet. They’re not—none of them are _actually_ New Yorkers, Mitch doesn’t think, but they all met in New York in some ‘burb-side pond hockey league, and speak in mostly inside jokes, movie quotes, and anecdotes that begin with, _So I was on the 6 like J.Lo, right..._

“It’s honestly unbearable when they talk about New York,” Auston says as he tears the house apart looking for his sunglasses. He’s not dressed to go—still wearing the same shirt from last night, which he then also slept in—but for some reason if he doesn’t find his sunglasses _right now_ , Mitch thinks Auston will lose his shit. And not to brag or anything, but Mitch has been dressed and ready for a half-hour, and has his sunglasses hooked in the collar of his shirt. “Like New York invented modern civilization or something. The birthplace of Chinese food and hockey and democracy, and shit.”

“Just because you’re from Arizona…” Mitch starts, chirping him just to chirp him, and Auston laughs just barely.

“Shut the fuck up,” he says lightly. He collapses on the couch and presses the heels of his palms into his closed eyes. “Ugh, fuck. That’s it. I can’t find my sunglasses, we can’t go.”

“You are literally the most dramatic person I’ve ever met,” Mitch tells him, “and I’ve met Hallsy. I’ve met _me_.”

Auston breathes out a laugh. He says, “Nah, you still win that category.” 

“Thanks,” Mitch says. “Look, if you don’t want to go anymore, for real, we don’t have to go.”

“I’m just being weird, I’ll get over it.”

“O- _kay_ ,” Mitch drags out, because he has no idea what that means.

And then, strangely, “Is Dylan coming?”

“No?” Mitch says. “Unless you invited him?”

“I didn’t, I just thought you would’ve.”

“Oh,” Mitch says. “No, I think he and Davo are going to some weird bio talk about glow-in-the-dark plankton or something.”

Auston rolls over the edge of the couch to stand up. “I can see why you chose pizza, then.”

“Yeah,” Mitch says. “Surprisingly, I'm not so hot on the plankton front.”

Mitch stays put as he watches Auston walk away and duck into his room, pulling his shirt over his head by the back of the collar as he goes. He yells out into the living room, “What do you even do with a biology degree, anyway?”

“Same thing you do with an architecture degree, I guess,” Mitch calls back.

“Start a break-up service?”

“Become a barista,” Mitch corrects, and Auston laughs.

He pops his head out and says, “That’s official, then?”

“Yeah,” Mitch says. “I texted Geno last night, and he just sent back a bunch of, like, closed parentheses.” He shapes his hand like a parenthesis as he mentions it, like maybe Auston doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or like maybe making the hand gesture makes the word _parentheses_ seem right.

“Sounds solid, then,” Auston jokes, and when he comes out of his bedroom, he’s dressed in a light grey t-shirt and a fedora, and the hat should make him look terrible, but instead it just makes him look everything Mitch wants.

“You look like an asshole in that hat,” Mitch says anyway. 

Auston flips him off and says, “Help me find my sunglasses.”

“Did you check your car?” Mitch asks.

“Did I check my—” Auston starts to mock, but then he cuts himself off.

“Like, the compartment for them up top,” Mitch clarifies, although he knows Auston hasn’t by the look on his face. Mitch knows that’s where they are; that’s where they always are, same as Auston’s keys are always on the kitchen table when he leaves to walk to campus.

“You know what I hate?” Auston asks instead of admitting to any of that.

“What?”

“When people find things and say it’s in the last place they looked,” he says.

“Then don't look there,” Mitch suggests. “Never find your sunglasses. Complain for life.”

“That’s one way to do it,” Auston says, but Mitch guesses he’s made up his mind, because then he’s grabbing his car keys and heading out the door before Mitch can even get up off the couch.

 

The New Yorkers are already there when Mitch and Auston roll in about ten minutes late, because Auston doesn’t know how to parallel park. The fact that they had to circle the block twice is embarrassing enough, though, and so in order to save Auston’s pride, Mitch explains instead, “Took ages finding his sunglasses. They were in the last place he looked.”

Auston lets out a loud laugh—a rarity in the Matthews world—and shoves Mitch into the booth without another word.

They end up ordering a couple of pizzas, some breadsticks, and a thing of garlic knots. It’s probably more food than they can eat, judging by the way the waitress stares at them, but leftovers are king, and so Mitch doesn’t care.

“Fuck yeah,” Kevin says when the food finally comes out. He reaches to grab a slice before the waitress has even finished putting it down, and Jimmy just rolls his eyes.

“He used to have manners before he got arrested,” Brady apologizes.

“One bite, everyone knows the rules,” Kevin responds nonsensically, raising his pizza in a silent toast before taking a huge bite. Then, with his mouth full, he adds, “Used to have more friends, too, before I had to post bail.” 

“You weren’t fucking arrested,” Mitch says, not buying it.

Auston asks, “Arrested for what?” 

“Played 3-on-3 hockey with some other guys on the Rockefeller rink,” Kevin tells them, and he seems genuine about it.

“Turns out the average citizen isn't so hot on having pucks flying at them,” Jimmy says. Then, just before he takes a bite of pizza, he adds, “One bite, everybody knows the rules.”

Austin starts, “What’re you—”

“In his defense,” Brady interrupts, “it was after hours and there was no one around. They just broke in. One bite…”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Auston says, and Mitch would agree but there’s a string of melted cheese going down the back of his throat, and he gets a little preoccupied with not choking to death. Auston pats him on the back and pushes a water cup closer, as if any of that is a help. Still, Mitch appreciates it. 

“We knew this guy,” Kevin explains as Mitch almost dies. “His name’s El Pres—he was actually the one who masterminded the Rockefeller thing—and he had this pizza challenge—”

“He had a goalie challenge, too,” Brady interrupts. “I dunno what was with him and challenges?”

“So he was a good goalie or something?” Mitch asks, and the three of them laugh.

“No, he was terrible,” Jimmy says.

Kevin leans across the table and responds pointedly, “Oh, _he_ was terrible? _He_ was terrible, two-for-ten?”

“The sticks were shit!” Jimmy defends himself, and as they get into an argument about it, Mitch and Auston have an aside.

“This is literally the most typical thing,” Auston says.

“Least we get some pizza though,” Mitch says around some crust. “Could be worse.”

“Could be Wilson and Latta,” and Mitch laughs for a sold thirty seconds, thinking of how that would go. Nothing against the two of them, not _exactly_ , but Mitch and Auston live just off Frat Row, but share a fence with Wilson and Latta who live _on_ Frat Row. It leads to some interesting times, to say the least.

Mitch tells him, “You should tell Brady’s he’s grossly disfigured,” referring to the scar on his chin.

“No,” Auston says, not even entertaining the idea, and Mitch shoulders him a few times, tries to ignore the pizza sauce that Auston licks off of the corner of his mouth.

“C’mon,” he says. “I dare you,” like it’s at all a good dare, or like dares at all mean anything when you’re out of middle school.

But Auston’s a champ. He interrupts the New York guys by kicking Brady under the table and gestures to his own chin, saying, “Hey. What the fuck happened there?”

“Kev kicked me in the face with his skates on,” Brady says like it’s no big deal, which puts Kevin all up in arms.

Mitch says, “Dude.”

“It was an _accident!_ ” Kevin says.

“Still, sucks,” Auston says. “Your girlfriend upset now that you’re…?” He waves a hand in front of his face and grimaces, like he means, _hideous_.

Brady cracks up and throws a napkin at him.

“Fuck off,” he says. “Still better lookin’ than you.”

It makes Mitch want to say that, well, Auston’s actually the best looking of the five of them, but he doesn’t because that’s the worst kind of chirping material, and neither he nor Auston would ever hear the end of it if he did. Plus, Auston’s laughing like it’s a joke, because it _is_ , and so Mitch doesn’t need to be so defensive about it.

He’s still thinking about it when they get home, though. Still thinking about how unattainably good-looking Auston is, and how unfair it is that Mitch has to look at him all the time. 

They spend the rest of the night on the couch watching Sports Center and eating room-temperature leftovers, their house dark save for the glow of the tv because they’re both too lazy to turn on a light.

It’s not bad. It’s a good night.

 

Dylan comes over later in the week, carrying every book in the library and then some like the giant nerd that he is. They’ve got an exam coming up in a class they’re taking together, _Brewing Science: The History, Culture, and Science of Beer_ , which Dylan signed up for because it filled a degree requirement for him; Mitch signed up for it it because he had expected there to be considerably more drinking than there actually is, and he’s been struggling with trust issues ever since.

“How do you not know this,” Dylan says, more a statement than anything else. There are a trillion flash cards spread out on the floor in front of him as he quizzes Mitch on the oldest beer recipe known to man.

“There’s a reason I’m in A-School and not the liberal arts,” Mitch defends himself. “Next semester, feel free to take _Intro to Parametric Structural Design_ with me, though. You’ll love it.”

“Pass,” Dylan says. “And anyway, the answer is that it was found in a poem honoring the Sumerian goddess Ninkasi.”

“What _ever_ ,” Mitch says.

“Dude, come on, this shit’s easy,” Dylan says. “I’ll help you. Crack open a beer and let’s go.”

And that right there is the reason Dylan gets to stay: he brought beer.

“I really did expect considerably more blind taste-testing than this class is calling for,” Mitch tries to explain as he heads to the kitchen for a Labatt. 

“Yeah?” Dylan asks, like, _Really?_ or more realistically, _You fucking moron_. 

“Sort of,” Mitch says, because he really did expect _some_ drinking. To like, discuss the hops or whatever.

In the kitchen, Mitch grabs a bottle of Blue and roots around in the drawer just to the right of the fridge for a bottle opener. They’ve got about seven of them, him and Auston combined, but the first one he finds is the one from Switzerland that Auston got him last year, and that looks like a little spoon. It’s the worst kind of cheesy and Mitch loves it. 

He takes two steps out of the kitchen before realizing that he might as well be nice and grab Dylan one, and so he darts back in to grab a second bottle, opening it with the same dumb spoon opener and hip-checking the drawer closed again when he’s done.

Dylan looks inexplicably smug when he sees Mitch walks over with a bottle in each hand, though, so Mitch brings him back down a peg by saying, “Hey, remember that time you bleached your hair?”

“I hope you fail out,” Dylan says, but he still takes the beer when Mitch offers it to him. “What beer ‘made Milwaukee famous?’”

“ _Schliiiiiiiiitz_ ,” Mitch drags out, cupping his free hand around his mouth, and since Dylan is cross-legged on the floor, Mitch collapses on the couch, stretching out over the entire length. Dylan cranes his neck awkwardly to look at Mitch, and for some reason when he does, he starts laughing.

It's not a mean laugh, just a happy one, like he's happy to be there with Mitch. Mitch is happy he's there, too.

It's weird to think how they used to hate each other when they first met as freshmen. Dylan’s one of his closest friends now, even though the way they show it is by not showing it.

“Hey, so,” Dylan starts, and then he cuts himself off. He shifts on the carpet so that he's facing Mitch, his shoulder leaning into the couch by Mitch’s hip.

“What?” Mitch prods, and Dylan rolls his eyes exaggeratedly.

“ _Hey_ , so,” he starts again. “Would it be weird if I asked Davo out?”

And even though Mitch knew this was coming eventually, he finds himself momentarily frozen by it happening _now_. He doesn't think it would be weird, though. How could it? It's been Dylan-and-Davo for ages now, and Mitch hasn't minded it at all, hasn't felt like less of their friend for it. He’s always sort of done his own thing, anyway, although maybe that's helped by the fact that he has Auston; Auston is _his_ , and not anybody else’s, if not in the way he wants then at least in a way he gets.

Mitch finds himself selfishly wanting to admit, _I want to ask my best friend out, too_ , but he doesn't.

Instead, Mitch says, “Can’t imagine you guys getting any weirder than you already are.”

Dylan doesn't say anything. He just looks at Mitch and Mitch looks back, and Dylan just looks so dumb, his mouth twisted to the side like that, like he’s worried that Mitch will disapprove, or that Davo will say no. Mitch starts laughing, haltingly at first, and then it really gets away from him, and suddenly Dylan’s laughing too, and neither of them can stop.

Mitch wonders how long they could've kept going for, but then the doorbell rings, and Mitch has to take a deep breath to yell out, “Coming!”

Mitch rolls off the couch using Dylan for leverage, and makes his way to the front door, where he flips the bolt and opens the door in one practiced motion. Auston’s there—obviously it’s Auston—and Mitch just scolds him, “Tsk, tsk, Matty.” 

“I _know_. Thanks,” Auston says honestly, following Mitch back to the living room. “Don’t know why I never—” and when he makes it into the living room and sees Dylan, he trips over his sentence. “Oh. Hey.”

Mitch throws himself back on the couch, accidentally elbowing Dylan in the head as he does.

“Ow,” Dylan says, and then, “Hey,” as he flips his hand awkwardly in a wave. Auston looks between the two of them, and Mitch feels a little bad suddenly that he didn’t give Auston the head’s up that Dylan was hanging out at their place.

“Hey,” Auston says again.

Mitch rolls his eyes at how embarrassing they both are and tells Auston, “Grab a beer and come hang out.”

Auston wrinkles his nose as a _no_ and says, “Gotta work on a paper. Drink one for me, though.” He starts making his way through the living room and into his bedroom.

Mitch calls after him, “Well, _we’re_ multitasking!” but Auston just laughs a little and shuts his door behind him.

Mitch wonders what the fuck that was about. He and Auston have written plenty of papers while drinking before; it’s not like they’re getting trashed or anything.

He tries and fails to discreetly pull out his phone, and when Dylan snorts, Mitch rolls his eyes and quits trying to do text covertly.

 _To: Auston_  
_You sure you don’t want a beer?_  
_Sent: 7:04 p.m._

A beat passes and then Dylan pulls a face and whispers out a laugh. He then proceeds to say the most bullshit thing ever, which is, “I don't think he likes me.”

“News flash,” Mitch says back, because that concept is too dumb to even consider. “ _I_ don't like you.”

It sets them off again laughing, and Mitch yelps as Dylan hits him in the thigh, causing one of the beers to spill everywhere and his phone to slip down between the couch cushions.

“You—!” Mitch says.

“ _You_ ,” Dylan counters, and they’re both still laughing, but Auston’s not there.

 

Mitch is a little worse for wear when he wakes up.

Because Auston’s a world-class gentleman in addition to being a mannerless idiot, he swipes Mitch into the dining hall for a greasy brunch that morning, right after Mitch’s crack-of-dawn Foundation Studio IV lets out. It's not that cold out—not nearly cold enough for hockey—but Auston’s still bundled up in a hoodie and a knit toque as he waits outside. His eyes look tight, like he just woke up.

“Cold out, eh?” Mitch says instead of hello.

“Fuck off,” Auston responds. “I'm from _Arizona_.”

“Yeah, but it's _eighteen degrees_ out,” Mitch counters, and holds open the door to the dining hall so Auston can walk in.

“That’s below freezing,” Auston says with a shrug, deliberately ignoring the supremacy of Celsius, and so after Auston swipes them in, Mitch shoulders into him hard enough to send him careening into the stack of trays.

The whole place is pretty empty, probably because they’re there at a weird off-hour: not quite breakfast, but definitely not yet lunch. Still, since Mitch rarely eats at the dining hall, he’s sure to make the most of it, grabbing some pancakes, bacon, and an omelet, and when they start switching over to lunch, he has a scoop of sweet and sour chicken, too.

“I’m honestly impressed,” Auston says, watching him. His eyebrows are at his hairline, practically, and he’s leaning back in his seat, his legs stretched out and all up in Mitch’s space. They’ve got an entire long table to themselves.

“Yeah?” Mitch asks. “Does it feel like you’re eating with Kreids?”

“Dude does eat a lot,” Auston allows. “Human dumpster.”

“That’s rude,” Mitch says.

“He calls _himself_ that,” Auston says in his defense.

“Oh. Then it’s funny. Too bad he’s an asshole on the ice,” Mitch says.

Auston snorts and says, “He’s not an asshole. You just got mad when I called him a human dumpster.”

“Yeah, but you’re only defending him because you’re both American,” Mitch argues, stacking his finally empty plates one on top of another. “He practically killed Carey last winter.”

“Oh, come on!” Auston says. “It’s not like Carey’s face is the moneymaker. Besides, Kreids was tripped.”

Mitch sits forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the table and counting off the points he’s making on his fingers. “Uh, one, just because he’s not Hank doesn’t mean death and dismemberment is cool. Two, he sure as shit was not tripped. Three, you’re just saying that because _you’re both American_ , and four, you’re just saying that because you were on his team that night!”

Auston shrugs, but doesn’t deny any of it. His cheeks are rounded, though, like he’s trying not to smile as he says, “Funny dude, though.”

“Yeah, he is funny,” Mitch agrees, and then he rubs both his eyes with his closed fists. “Ugh, don’t wanna do this break-up today.”

“I thought you were done with that?”

“I am,” Mitch says, and then because he’s weak, he eats the cold, abandoned strip of bacon that’s leftover on Auston’s plate. “Just finishing up the ones I already took money for.”

“Cool,” Auston says. “Wanna hang out afterwards?”

“Yeah, I’ll have my people call your people.” 

Auston lightly kicks a foot out at him underneath the table, and then pushes his chair back to stand. Mitch follows suit and they both walk their trays up to be cleared off, and then they head outside, Auston tugging his toque back on over his head.

“I’m in a _t-shirt_ ,” Mitch stresses without explanation, but Auston gets it and he rolls his eyes.

“If you’re still coming to Scottsdale this summer, I can’t wait to see you die in 104 degrees,” Auston says. “I’m never going to shut up about it.”

“Yeah, I’m still coming,” Mitch says. They’ve only been planning it since the dawn of time; Auston’s crazy for thinking Mitch is about to bail. “Your mom would be so upset if she went to the airport and only you got off the plane.”

“Funny,” Auston deadpans, which is what he does whenever he doesn’t have a comeback and wants to seem cool and aloof. 

Mitch stops by his scooter when they reach the curb. His scooter is still there in all her glory, and Mitch puts his hands on his hips as he looks at the spraypaint on the side. He’ll have to paint that over. Maybe undo it the way it got done: just him, Auston, and enough booze that there’s no memory of the event.

It’s an idea.

“Anyway,” he says finally. “See you later.”

“Later,” Auston says, and turns to walk away.

“Oh! Wait!” Mitch calls out. He slings his backpack around towards his front and unzips the main compartment. “Can you take my textbook home, if you’re headed right back?” It’s heavy, and it's annoying to ride with all that on his back if he doesn't have to.

Auston sighs loud enough for Mitch to hear, but still holds out his hand. 

Mitch takes that as a win.

 

That day, Mitch zooms through the downtown area and out the other side, to where the houses get super nice but not over-the-top extravagant. The house he’s looking for is 9400 Maryland Avenue, and Mitch comes to a stop when he finds it, strategically parking his scooter nose-out. 

It’s a nice house, all brick and bright white trim. Kinda reminds Mitch of his parents’ place in the GTA. There are even flowers lining the walkway up to the front door, which screams _Real Adult_ to Mitch; he and Auston can’t even keep a houseplant alive.

Mitch scrolls through his phone as he walks, pulling up the email with the subject line, _Dump Doctor_. It’s kinda clever, actually, if that’s what Kendall is calling him. Although—maybe with a house like this, the dumpee is a doctor. Mitch doesn’t know.

Through the window, all Mitch can see is a brown leather couch in the living room, set up to face a giant tv up on the wall. Mitch wants to live exactly right there in the space he can see. He rings the doorbell and glances down at his phone.

 _Hi_ , the email starts.

_His name is Paul, and I don’t care how you do it, just make sure he knows not to call me again. It was the best sex I’ve ever had, but he is so emotionally closed off that it’s not even worth it. How am I supposed to be with someone who can’t even have a serious conversation? I thought because he’s a doctor that I hit the jackpot, but he’s just as immature as the rest of them. Tell him to go fu—_

“Hey, Marner!” a voice cheers.

Mitch looks up.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Mitch asks, because when he looks up, there’s BizNasty from the pond. “Is this another joke?”

“Is what a joke?” Biz asks. He’s smiling wide but still looks a little surprised. Maybe he’s just happy to see Mitch. “Lookit you, all suave off the ice. Maroon pants, maroon hat—a bold choice. Extra Butter? _Nice._ ”

From inside, a voice calls out, “Either let him in or let him leave,” and Biz laughs.

“Men are talking, Claude,” Biz calls back into the house, and all he gets is laughter in return.

“Um, actually,” Mitch says, because this is where things get awkward. “I’m here for… business? I’m looking for Paul?” 

“Yeah,” Biz says. “That’s me, nine to five.”

“Bummer,” Mitch says, because BizNasty’s real name never came up at the pond, and now Mitch has to dump him. He hands over one of the business cards that he had made at Kinko’s. “Kendall doesn’t want to see you anymore.”

“Who?” Biz asks.

“Kendall?” Mitch clarifies, looking back down at his phone briefly. “Yeah, Kendall. She says you’re emotionally constipated, basically, and that it’s not worth it anymore. But she did also say you’re the best sex she’s ever had. So there’s that.”

Mitch is sure to add that last bit in, to sweeten the whole deal. Biz just grins.

“Sounds about right,” he says with a laugh, and then he reaches out, grabs Mitch by the shoulder and tugs him inside. “C’mon.”

“You do get that you just got dumped, right?” Mitch asks, clarifying. “Like, she doesn’t want you to call her again.”

“Bro, let it _go_ ,” Biz says, like Mitch is being a downer. Which—okay, _technically_ , but Mitch is just doing his job. He looks pleased when Mitch gives in and steps over the threshold and into the house, but then Biz looks past Mitch and out onto the street. “Where’s Matthews?”

“...Not here?” Mitch says like a question. “We’re two separate people, you know that, right?”

Biz laughs. He says, “Sure,” like he doesn’t quite believe it, and then closes the door, walks Mitch back into the house to another living room, this one with an even bigger tv and Giroux sprawled out on one of the couches, reading the back of a Cheez-Its box.

“Hey, Marns,” Giroux says. He’s acting like it's normal for Mitch to just swing by BizNasty’s place, even though Biz is twelve years older than Mitch and, like, not in college. But, to be fair, Giroux deals with Briere’s kids all the time, and they’ve seemed like a lot to handle the few times Mitch has met them, so maybe nothing fazes Giroux anymore.

“Yo,” Mitch says back, and hates himself for being so embarrassing.

“Want some?” Giroux asks, holding out the box, and Mitch looks at him, looks at Biz. Mitch shrugs.

In for a penny, he supposes, and says, “Sure,” as he drops down onto the free side of the couch.

Considering he doesn’t really know these guys, it’s a nice couple of hours. Davo probably would’ve called it Stranger Danger, the way Mitch just blindly went into Biz’s house, but Davo operates on his own plane of existence most days. It’s whatever. Mitch just ignores him.

 

Because Davo’s secretly eighty, he invites Mitch and Auston over for game night— _board_ game night, not CoD, which usually means they end up playing _Monopoly_ , if they let Davo have a say in it. This is why they don’t let Davo have a say in it, and instead override everything he suggests, and settle on _Catan_ and _Ticket to Ride._

“Hey,” Davo says, opening the door. And then because he’s terrible, he follows it up with, “Did you bring soda?”

“Yeah,” Auston says, at the same time as Mitch says, “Yes, Mom.”

Davo pulls a slight face and defends himself by saying, “Well, we already _have_ beer.”

“Ignore him,” Auston says. “That’s what I do.”

“I figured you had to, since he’s still alive,” Davo says, but before Mitch can add anything, Davo says, “Dylan’s already back there, tracking the pizza order online.”

“Cool,” Mitch says, and he heads back to the tv room, abandoning Auston and Davo to deal with the drinks. When Mitch reaches the couches, he throws himself down on the same one as Dylan, just so he can jostle Dylan’s shoulders and bug him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Dylan says, not looking up from his phone. “Nathan just took our pizza out for delivery.”

“I’d have picked it up on our drive over, if I knew,” Mitch says.

“No you wouldn’t have,” Dylan says, still staring at his phone, and Mitch cranes his neck so he can see the pizza tracker, too.

“I mean, probably not,” Mitch agrees. 

He and Dylan just keep staring wordlessly at the tracker. The pizza place isn’t far; if Nathan really has it out for delivery already, it should be here any minute.

“Really?” Auston says. Mitch didn’t even realize he was there, but he must’ve just shown up, because he’s got two beer bottles held between the fingers of one hand and walks over.

“It’s actually a lot more exciting than you’d expect,” Dylan says, and that’s when the doorbell goes off. “You think Davo’ll actually get it?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, and instead shoves Mitch to the side and gets up, heads out of the living room and towards the entryway. Mitch can hear him open the door and say, _Hey, man_ to whoever’s on the other side.

“Here,” Auston says, passing a beer over. Mitch takes it with a smile, but they both seem to realize at the same time that it’s not a twist off, and that they need a bottle opener.

“Nose goes,” Mitch says, touching a finger to the tip of his nose, and because Auston’s both a scholar and a gentleman, he doesn’t even argue it.

Auston rounds the corner towards the kitchen and then immediately turns back around, his eyes wide and his jaw dropped. He says, “ _Ho_ -ly shit, oh my god.”

“What?” Mitch asks, sitting up, and with that one word, Auston’s eyebrows drop and immediately pinch together. Mitch now _has_ to know what happened. He says again, “ _What_?”

“I saw, um,” Auston says. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder and then glances behind himself, like suddenly he’ll be able to see through the wall. 

“Oh my god, you’re the worst. _What?_ ” Mitch says, and starts to get off of the couch so he can check the situation out himself. Auston stops him with a hand up, and Mitch rolls his eyes.

“They’re—Dylan and Davo,” Auston says.

“Yeah…?” Mitch says.

“No, they’re like,” Auston gestures something with his hands, starting them far apart and then bringing them closer together so that his fingertips meet, and then he does it a second time. “They’re making out in the fucking kitchen.”

“What about the pizza?” Mitch asks, and then feels like an idiot. That’s not—the pizza isn’t the point, obviously. Mitch forgets that Auston’s an idiot, and while literally everyone on the face of the planet knew that Dylan and Davo were an inevitable thing, Auston probably barely realized they were friends. So Mitch says, “I mean, oh.” A beat, where Auston keeps looking at him, waiting for something more. “I mean… whoa? I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

Auston shakes his head slowly as if to clear his thoughts and then says, “Nothing, I guess. I was just surprised.”

“I know you were,” Mitch says with a snort.

“But you… weren’t?” Auston asks haltingly, and Mitch just shrugs.

“I mean, not even a little bit,” Mitch says, honestly, and the way Auston looks at him after that… Mitch doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if Auston looks sad or angry or what, but he doesn’t get to ask, either, because then Dylan and Davo walk in with the pizza boxes and a roll of paper towels.

“Connor says you guys are animals and you can just eat right out of the box,” Dylan announces, and Davo laughs. His cheeks are red, but Mitch is guessing it’s not from that lame chirp Dylan just dropped.

“Shut up, it’s just easier,” Davo says, and he places the boxes down on the coffee table and opens the top one to grab a slice. Mitch follows suit, stretching out to grab one of whatever’s closest, and when the slice is in his hands, he gestures a toast with it.

“One bite, everybody knows the rules,” he says, purely for Auston’s benefit. 

Auston huffs out a half-assed laugh, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he’s quiet for the rest of the night, worriedly glancing over at Mitch every now and again, and getting caught up in his own head.

Mitch wants to ask, but he knows how Auston gets, and so he doesn’t. 

Auston will come to him.

 

Naturally, Mitch is right. Auston finally says something when they’re back at their house and Mitch is locking the door behind them.

“You okay?” he asks.

Unthinkingly, Mitch looks around the room to see who else Auston might be talking to, but it’s just the two them.

“Me?” Mitch asks. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be? Are _you_?”

“Aren't you—I mean…” Auston says. He throws himself down on the couch and kicks one foot up onto the coffee table. “You and Dylan.”

“Me and Dylan what?” Mitch asks.

“You’re, you know. Hooking up.” Auston shoves his hands awkwardly in his pockets as he sinks further down into the cushions and shrugs.

“What?” Mitch asks, incredulous. “Who told you that?”

“Look, dude, I saw you guys,” Auston says. “It's cool, I'm not—like, I thought if you ever—that it’d be—”

Mitch puts his hand up to stop Auston as he interrupts, “What do you mean, you _saw_ us?” 

“I didn't mean to! And I didn't _see_ anything. You two were just like, in bed or whatever, so you don't need to freak out.”

“Freak out?” Mitch says. “ _Freak out?_ ”

“Look, do you want me to beat his ass?” Auston asks plainly. “Because I will. I'm a hundred percent on your side with this.”

“There _is_ no side,” Mitch says. He realizes that he’s been standing in a state of shock this entire time, so he finally drops down into the open armchair. “What crazy pills are you on? Dylan and Davo have been endgame since like day one. Plus, I would literally never hook up with Dylan.”

“Well—”

“Except that once, I know, but to be fair that was when we still hated each other,” Mitch amends. “And definitely before I met Davo.”

“Oh,” Auston says. His face is a little red, and he rubs the back of his neck in a gesture of embarrassment that Mitch hardly ever sees from him. “I was wondering why you wouldn't tell me.”

“Because there was _nothing to tell_ ,” Mitch stresses.

“Yeah, I mean, I get that _now_ ,” Auston says. “But I saw you guys that morning after trivia a while back and I thought… I dunno.”

It takes Mitch a second to put two and two together, because honestly, he thought Auston walking in was a _dream_. 

“Dude, that was a million years ago,” Mitch points out. 

“I know, I know,” Auston says. He slings an arm over his eyes and wrinkles his nose, as if it pains him to admit, “Just, you never hook up, and I thought you were embarrassed to tell me—”

“I _would_ be embarrassed, if I were hooking up with Dylan,” Mitch mutters, and Auston moves his arm for just long enough to shoot Mitch a glare. 

“I was just jealous, alright?” Auston says. “You're my best friend, and I thought that when you…”

There are a lot of things that Mitch wants to say to that, things like, _You're my best friend too_ , and the less honest but definitely petty, _Dylan really wasn't great enough to be jealous over._

Instead, what he says is, “Well… We’re not. So.”

“Oh,” Auston says.

“Yeah.”

“Can we just…” Auston starts. “Can we just agree to forget that part where I said I was jealous?”

Mitch thinks about what it would've looked like, Auston and Dylan together, the two of them sharing nachos and wings at trivia, and the two of them driving to the Staal pond together, and the two of them sharing a dilapidated house off Frat Row. He fucking hates it, hates the thought of sharing Auston with other people, even though he knows it's only a matter of time before he has to. That makes it easy to agree, though. Easy to say, for now at least, “Already forgotten,” and easier still to smile back at Auston’s relieved face.

 

Mitch runs around like a crazy person the next day. He has his Building Matters seminar at eleven, which is unbearably boring, and then he dumps his last dumpee ever, who turns out to be a super nice freshman and who Mitch talks down from hysteria by telling her all the things she deserves in life. And then: 

Freedom.

It’s weird because Mitch really didn’t know _how_ he’d feel when he was done with entrepreneurship, but it turns out he mostly just feels really good, like there’s a giant weight off his shoulders. But still, money waits for no man, and once Mitch is done telling Annie to stop crying, he heads over to Samovar to see what he’s got to do before he can start as a barista. Maybe, like, learn how to make a latte. 

Geno’s behind the counter when Mitch gets there, because he always is. What Mitch isn’t expecting is Sid to be there, too, sitting in a suit at one of the barstools by the register, poking at a piece of _Ptichye Moloko_ with a fork in one hand and a skeptical look on his face.

“Sid,” he hears Geno say as he walks closer, “you know I’m biggest fan, but I’m also hate you a lot right now.”

“You need to learn how be a better liar,” Sid says, and he’s probably trying to hide it, but Mitch can see the side of his smile from a dozen steps away. 

“Mitch tried cake,” Geno says, catching sight of Mitch over Sid’s shoulder. “Mitch say cake was very good. Maybe I'm like him more than you.”

“Who’s Mitch?” Sid asks, and when Geno jerks his chin over at him, Sid turns around. Mitch waves, coming to a stop when he’s actually up at the counter. “Oh, _hockey_ Mitch. Hey.”

“Hey,” Mitch says back. And then to Geno, “Figured I’d see if I needed to fill out any forms or anything. You know, so I’m good for… whenever you let me start.”

“Sure,” Geno says easily. “I’m just need you to break up with my boyfriend for me first.”

“Oh my god,” Sid says, dropping his head back a little. Mitch wonders if he does that to mentally curse the fates or just to look up at Geno. Sid then sighs, so Mitch supposes it’s the former. “You know I don’t like marshmallow.”

“To be fair, it’s really more of an adult Jell-o,” Mitch offers.

Geno looks at Mitch like that was the worst thing he could’ve said and tells him, “Not helping, Mitchy.”

“I just… I dunno,” Sid says, looking down at the _Ptichye Moloko_ like it might try to fight him. He picks up his fork and uses it to scrape the tiniest bit off from the bottom corner of the dessert, like anything larger than a speck of it will kill him.

“And?” Geno asks drily as Sid tries it. 

“It’s good,” Sid says, in the kind of way where Mitch’s Canadian Politeness Radar is going wild.

Geno just turns to Mitch and says longsufferingly, “ _Blizok lokotok, da ne ukusish,_ ” as if Mitch understands Russian, and then he asks, “What you want? Coffee.”

“Oh, um,” Mitch says, caught off guard. “Same as last time would be cool.”

“Drunk Sidney Special, coming right up,” Geno says, and when he turns his back, Sid takes a normal-sized bite of the _Ptichye Moloko,_ angling the fork when he places it back down so that it looks like Mitch took the bite.

“I can tell that you’re using me,” Mitch says to him, “I just can’t tell why.”

Sid shrugs his shoulder and one corner of his mouth lifts up slightly in a smile. If he plans to say anything back, Mitch never finds out, because then Geno calls him over to the trillion-dollar espresso machine and asks him if he knows what a knockbox is.

Breaking news: Mitch does not.

 

Their house is quiet later that night. Auston’s holed up in his room catching up on his reading, and Mitch is trying to do the same out in the living room, but mostly all he’s doing is watching _300_ on tv.

“Stop watching that shit,” Auston calls out through his open door. “Makes me wanna come out there.”

“And what?” Mitch calls back. “Fight me?”

Auston laughs a little and says, “No, come out and watch it.”

“Oh,” Mitch says. He supposes it's a bit of a dick move, especially since Auston really is trying to study. He turns the tv off and grabs his textbook, walks over to Auston’s room. Pushing Auston’s door open the rest of the way and walking in, Mitch says, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Auston replies. He’s lying on his stomach, propped up on his elbows with his laptop open in front of him.

Mitch flops on the open space on the bed. Auston bounces a little as the mattress jumps under Mitch’s weight.

“PDF looks exciting,” Mitch says, jerking his chin to what Auston’s looking at.

Auston just says, “Ha,” and scrolls to the next page of the PDF. Mitch watches Auston's fingers move on the trackpad, and then rolls onto his back so he can only watch the ceiling, instead.

They don't talk for a long time after that. Auston does his reading and Mitch tries to do his, alternating between holding his textbook above his face as he skims the pages and listening to Auston breathe and move next to him. They’ve been in each other’s space for so long that it doesn’t feel awkward; it doesn’t even occur to Mitch that maybe he shouldn’t have just barged in and taken over until long after he’s already done it.

“You got a lot left?” Auston asks eventually, breaking the silence.

“Not really,” Mitch says, and it’s a good thing, too, because he’s mostly just finding shapes in the stucco ceiling. “Trying to do next week’s reading but I don’t have the willpower.”

“Me either,” Auston says.

Mitch looks over at him, and he looks kind of tired. His hair is all over the place.

Mitch asks, “Wanna know a crazy fact?”

Auston smiles slightly and says, “Sure.”

“So there’s this building, right,” Mitch says. “In Boston. Huge tower, like a hundred floors. And when they first built it, there was this crazy structural flaw with the windows that led to the windows popping out of the building. Like, giant, 500-pound sheets of glass plummeting to the ground.”

“Fuck,” Auston says, probably equal parts impressed Mitch knows that and distressed over it happening. “What caused it?”

“The type of glass, I think,” Mitch says. “I dunno, haven’t gotten that far yet. Hashtag engineering problems.”

Auston laughs and shifts on his elbows, causing his shoulders to shift beneath his shirt. Mitch tries not to stare, and instead looks at Auston’s face, at his smile and his nose and the one eyelash that’s weirdly out of place. Auston just looks back.

They’re really close together, Mitch realizes belatedly. Closer than they need to be. Close enough to touch. 

And then Auston’s face tilts to the side, and for just a second, Mitch thinks Auston’s going to lean in and kiss him. Mitch wants him to. Fuck, Mitch wants him to. Mitch licks his lips and finds himself leaning in, too, until he realizes what he's doing and jerks back, knocking his textbook off his stomach and over the edge of the bed.

Auston jumps when the book hits the floor, and Mitch has to have imagined the way Auston was looking at him, looking at his mouth. That, between them, is never going to happen. Mitch knows that. He’s _accepted_ that. But... 

But it's _Auston_. That’s the thing. Suddenly, Mitch thinks it could be worth the risk, because it’s Auston. Suddenly, he just wants _more_.

Mitch doesn't know what changed for him. He thinks it's fucked that he's willing to risk his best friend over something like this, something as stupid as wanting to kiss him, but there it is.

All of a sudden, enough isn't enough anymore.

“Y’okay, buddy?” Auston asks, a little laughter in his voice, and Mitch tries to smile as he lets out a breath.

“Yeah,” Mitch blatantly lies. “I'm good. I'm _great_. How are you?”

Auston studies his face for a minute and then tells Mitch, “You’re being weird.”

“ _You’re_ being weird,” Mitch shoots back, even though he’s not. 

Auston just rolls his eyes and then turns back to his laptop, and Mitch goes back to staring at the ceiling.

 

Before this year, Mitch would've said he wasn't prone to freakouts or emotional meltdowns. He’s been good, in the past, about ignoring the whole Auston thing, about just being buddies and not dumping other people for money and just generally being down for a good time.

Mitch is still down for a good time, only now he’s dumped like two dozen strangers for twenty bucks a pop, and can't stop thinking about Auston in the worst kind of way. In the kind of way where like, he wants to know if Auston’ll let Mitch buy him dinner first.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and so Mitch heads out to Bay Street.

“Okay,” Matt says when he opens the door, more to himself than anything else. “I didn’t really think this through when I gave you my address.”

“Not now,” Mitch tells him, shouldering past him and into the house. “I’m having a crisis.”

“In that case…” Matt says sarcastically, but whatever kind of guilt trip he’s trying to lay isn’t taking. Mitch has other things going on, and he must say that out loud, because then Matt asks, “Okay. What other things?”

“Things like me wanting to date my roommate!” Mitch says. “How about that?”

“Right,” Matt says. He sits down in his La-Z-Boy and pulls up the footrest, grabbing the bag of Doritos that’s sitting next to him on the end table. “How about we start at the beginning?”

“That _was_ the beginning,” Mitch says, faceplanting down on the couch, and then into the cushions he says, “And the end, and the middle, and the whole point.”

Matt laughs a little, but Mitch doesn’t lift his head to look at him. He doesn’t want to give Matt the satisfaction. This is scarring enough for Mitch as it is.

“So why don’t you just date him?” Matt asks.

“Oh, sure,” Mitch says. He forgets about not giving Matt any satisfaction and props himself up on his elbows so he can adequately convey just how moronic Matt is. “How about I _just_ date Auston. Yeah, and then I can _just_ grow money on trees, and _just_ buy a house on the moon, and _just—_ ”

“Chill,” Matt laughs. He holds out the Doritos. “Chip?”

“No,” Mitch says.

“Look. I just meant that it's not like he's gonna say no. You’ve been kind of stringing him along for two years now, that’s all.”

Mitch lets out a surprised laugh and rolls over onto his back, which sort of causes him to wedge his entire body between the back and bottom cushions. He presses the heels of his palms into his closed eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Right, I’ve been stringing Auston along,” Mitch says.

“Right,” Matt agrees. "So just ask him out."

“Right,” Mitch says one more time, for good measure.

There’s a pause where neither of them says anything, and then Matt breaks it by asking, “Are you alright?”

And no, Mitch is not _alright_. Mitch is very not _alright_. Because some part of him has been in love with Auston for going on three years, and now Matt’s telling him that Auston’s been interested right back for at least two of them. Which—Mitch can’t really imagine, like, _at all_ , but Matt isn’t the kind of guy who would be a dick and lie about something like that. Which means it must be true. Mitch can’t at all imagine that.

He tries to think back on everything, on if there was anything that Auston ever did that Mitch could now view in a different light, as something Auston did because he was interested in dating Mitch. He swipes Mitch into the dining hall sometimes, and drives them to the pond during winter; he even DVRs shows sometimes just because he thinks Mitch might like them, but all those things are just _Mitch and Auston_ things, things they do because they’re best friends. Mitch always picks Auston up a spicy chicken sandwich when he gets himself one from Mr. Sub, and he always buys their first round at trivia to make up for how useless he is. That’s just how they are.

Looking at it now, it does seem sort of like dating, minus the whole _dating_ bit.

“Wow, I hate myself,” Mitch says.

“If it helps, I think he’s just as much of an idiot about it as you are,” Matt says.

“That helps zero percent,” Mitch tells him, and then he blindly sticks his hand out in the general direction of where Matt’s sitting.

Matt pities him enough to maneuver the Dorito bag so that Mitch’s hand winds up inside. 

 

If nothing else, Matt’s good at giving Mitch something to think about, and Mitch thinks about it the entire ride home.

Also, he panics. He panics the entire way ride home.

It used to be that he couldn’t handle it if things got awkward, but now, he can't handle things the way they are, either. He thinks about the way Auston had looked lying on his bed the other night, and how he thought Auston was going to kiss him. Mitch wants more moments like that, but where he doesn’t pull away, and neither does Auston.

It doesn’t leave Mitch with a whole lot of options. Either he says something, because it’s just Auston, and Auston would never freak out, or he never says anything for as long as he lives, because it’s _Auston_ , and Mitch can’t lose him.

And that’s sort of what seals the deal, for Mitch. Either way, it’s Auston.

Either way, it’s _Auston_ , and they’ll be fine. That’s a big part of why Mitch is in love with him, and being in love with him is sort of the point. Mitch doesn’t want him dating other people, or driving other people to hockey, or watching _30 for 30_ with other people on the couch. Mitch wants to kiss him; he wants to go to Arizona this summer and meet Auston’s high school friends and be introduced as Auston’s boyfriend, not just as some kid Auston met at college. Mitch doesn’t want to _share_.

With that in mind, Mitch throws open the door to their house. He hears the tv before anything else, and a second later, Auston calls out a distracted _hey_ from the living room.

“Hey,” Mitch calls back easily, because nothing’s going to fuck them up. He and Auston can handle anything, and so as he rounds the corner, he announces, “I want to go on a date.”

Auston’s slouched on the couch when Mitch finally sees him. He’s barely paying Mitch any attention, and he’s wearing the Tiger-Cats t-shirt that he bought just to fuck with Mitch at last year’s Argos game. Mitch still wants him.

“Okay,” Auston says easily, which is great except for then he looks over and asks, “With who?”

“What do you mean?” Mitch asks. 

“That girl from the bar? She seemed into you.” 

“What? No,” Mitch says. He probably should’ve been a little more specific, although it occurs to him that maybe this is just Auston giving him an out. Mitch thinks he’d take it, except for how tired he is of not even trying to get what he wants. “I meant—you. I meant, I want to go on a date with _you_.” 

Auston’s eyebrows pinch at the center, just a little bit. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”

“I am,” Mitch says. “So just— _yes_ , I’m being serious. You’re my best friend. I want to date you.” 

“Oh,” Auston says, surprised. 

“Yeah,” Mitch agrees, but then Auston doesn’t say anything else for a while after that. Just when Mitch starts to worry, a smile creeps across Auston’s face, and it’s small, and his eyes don’t crinkle at the corners like they do when he laughs, but it’s genuine and just for Mitch, _because_ of Mitch, and that’s important. 

“You think you can handle all of this?” Auston asks, waving one hand down the line of his body. He’s smiling like he knows what he’s doing, and now Mitch is smiling back, because his best friend is terrible, and Mitch is gonna date the shit out of him.

“I mean, probably not,” Mitch admits readily. “But practice makes perfect.”

“I’ll make sure you get the ice time,” Auston says, and Mitch wants to rolls his eyes, wants to kiss him, wants everything.

And for once, Mitch can _have_ everything.

“I want to kiss you,” he says, “but I’m not sure I want our first kiss to be while Saul Goodman’s talking about squat cobblers.”

“So demanding,” Auston replies, but he shuts off the tv anyway and then stands up from the couch. He moves slow, though, and then starts doing this awkward thing where he lines up the remotes on the coffee table and picks up his water glass, like he’s actually going to go put it in the dishwasher first, and Mitch is just done waiting.

“Hey,” he says, stepping closer to Auston, and when Auston looks over, Mitch leans in and kisses him.

As far as kisses go, it’s pretty basic, just Mitch’s mouth slanted across Auston’s, except for how it’s _Mitch’s_ mouth, and it’s _Auston’s_ , and so it’s not basic at all. Auston has one hand on Mitch’s bicep, the other still holding his water glass, and Mitch can’t help but smile because the two of them are kissing in their living room and the remotes are actually where they’re supposed to be, and Mitch has a hand down Auston’s back pocket, just because he can.

“What?” Auston asks, pulling away just enough to speak, but Mitch follows him, giving him another quick kiss that’s mostly just their smiles mashing together.

“Just laughing at you,” Mitch says eventually, and Auston looks at him and then down to his lips and back again.

“What else is new?” Auston asks.

And Mitch thinks, _Nothing, really._

 

In the end, the two of them head to Auston’s room. Mitch almost doesn’t want to let Auston get too far away from him, like maybe then Auston will change his mind if he does, and so Mitch holds on to Auston’s t-shirt by the small of the back as they walk.

Without turning around, Auston just reaches back and grabs Mitch’s hand instead. It’s embarrassingly nice.

Auston closes the door behind them once they’re in his room. Mitch hasn’t really hooked up much, and he’s definitely never hooked up with his best friend before, so he doesn’t know how this is supposed to go, or what boxes he’s supposed to check. He ends up sitting on the edge of Auston’s bed, on same side where he had stretched out to study the night before. Crazy how much can change in a day; his textbook is still on Auston’s floor.

Mitch looks at Auston and Auston looks back. He’s still standing by the door, carrying himself a little rigidly even as he runs his fingers through his hair. He looks… Mitch doesn’t know. Not like himself, maybe. 

“Are you nervous?” Mitch asks, surprised, and Auston shrugs.

“I mean, kind of, yeah,” Auston says. “Aren’t you?”

Mitch shakes his head, because he’s not. “What’s to be nervous about? It’s just you.”

“Oh,” Auston says, and then he rubs the back of his neck with one hand. He admits, “I’ve, uh. I just don’t want to do anything to mess this up. Kind of been into you for a long time.”

“No,” Mitch groans, because—fucking Matt was right. He scrunches up his face as he says, “Don’t say that.”

“Sorry,” Auston apologizes, shrugging in a way that’s not at all casual. Mitch wants to strangle him.

“No, not—” he starts, and then he stops because there’s only so many ways he can say the important stuff. “I’ve been into you since we first met.” 

“Oh,” Auston says again, and really, he should be thanking his lucky stars that Mitch is more than willing to carry the conversation. Auston’s double-bogey on the course, at this point. “Good.”

“Yeah,” Mitch replies, smiling, and he’s about to call Auston over, but then Auston opens his mouth.

“I was so fucking jealous,” he says. “When I thought you were hooking up with Dylan.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that,” Mitch sort of snaps, because everyone loves Dylan even though Dylan’s objectively lame. Only then it sets in that— “ _Oh_ ,” Mitch says. “I thought you were jealous of _me_.” 

“No,” Auston says, almost laughing. He leans back against his dresser and looks across the room at Mitch. “Why would I be jealous of _you_?”

“I don’t know,” Mitch says honestly, and this time, Auston does laugh, just a tiny bit, like he can’t believe how dumb they were being. The tops of his cheeks are flushed, and suddenly, Mitch is tired of him being so far away. He holds a hand out, waggles his fingers. “C’mere.”

Auston pads barefoot across his carpet, and when he gets close enough, Mitch tugs him closer with two fingers dipped in the front pocket of his jeans.

Mitch says, “I hate your shirt.”

“I can take it off,” Auston offers, and _there_ he is, there’s the smartass that Mitch loves.

“Fuck the Ticats,” Mitch says like he’s agreeing to something, and even though it feels out of place, he pushes Auston’s shirt up just enough so that he can lean in and press his mouth to the skin above Auston’s belly button. 

“Are you serious?” Auston asks. He runs his hand around the back of Mitch’s neck, fingers brushing his hair. “Your big move is the stomach?”

“Oh my god,” Mitch says, but when he looks up, Auston’s smiling like he knows what he’s doing, like he’s just messing with Mitch because he can. 

Auston slides his hand around, so that his palm is on the side of Mitch’s neck and his thumb brushing the front of Mitch’s throat. He can probably feel it when Mitch swallows, loudly in the quiet room. Mitch keeps looking up at him and Auston’s eyes are laser-focused, like he wants Mitch so bad, and Mitch wishes he’d just get on with it.

“Come on,” Mitch finally says, and maybe that’s all Auston needed to hear, because then he’s pushing Mitch back by the shoulder until they’re both lying flat on the bed. He presses his lips against Mitch’s and slips one hand up underneath Mitch’s shirt, to rest on his bare side.

Mitch kisses him back, opening up his mouth to Auston’s tongue, and lets Auston kiss him the way Auston does everything: like it’s the point of it all, like it’s the only thing that matters to him. Mitch pulls Auston’s hips closer by the sides of his jeans, just for something to do with his hands, and then he rocks his hips up into Auston’s, just to hear the way Auston’s breath catches.

They’re going to be really good together. He’d thought about it before, but he hadn’t really _known_. 

“Known what?” Auston asks, his lips trailing over the corner of Mitch’s jaw, and he works a hand between their bodies to start tugging at Mitch’s belt.

“I can’t think straight with you doing that,” Mitch tells him, “so just imagine I made a great joke about you scoring four times with me.”

“Great joke, Mitch,” Auston tells him, laughter in his voice. “Now stop talking.”

And Mitch? He’s only too happy to oblige.

 

They really don’t do much for the rest of the day, just fool around and laze in bed, and boil some tortellini for an afternoon snack at around four o’clock. Mitch almost suggests that they skip trivia, too, because he likes the way his hands look on Auston’s bare skin so much, but he doesn’t just because trivia’s the one constant they’ve all got going. Even hockey’s only about a third of the year, when it’s cold enough to freeze. 

They wind up walking into the bar late, anyway. These things happen; Mitch can’t help that he’s irresistible.

“Maybe if you were on time, we wouldn’t be _I Am Smartacus_ ,” Jared says, but he still slides the mostly empty pitcher of beer over, and Mitch dumps the rest of it out into an empty pint glass.

“Yeah, what _is_ that,” Mitch says. This team name business is falling apart without him to right the ship. He feels a good rant coming on, but then Auston places his hand is on Mitch’s thigh underneath the table. When Mitch looks over, Auston’s not even paying him any attention, too busy going over the score sheet with Dylan instead, and it makes Mitch wonder why he ever thought he couldn’t have this.

“It’s just really hard to say no to Connor,” Jeff says, “because he thinks he’s doing such a great job with the names.”

“I mean, he does have a point when he says that _Nine Inch Males_ shows a lack of creativity,” Jared agrees.

“This is how evil wins,” Mitch points out, but neither of them seem to actually grasp the gravity of the situation, and so Mitch leaves it be. Instead, he takes a sip of beer and bumps his knee into Auston’s to get his attention. “Nachos?”

“Yeah, sure,” he says, and Mitch looks around to flag their waitress as Guddy reads the next question from the MC booth.

“Which solo performer has the most Billboard Top 100 entries with seventy-six Top 100 singles, three more than the second place Aretha Franklin?” Guddy asks. He repeats the question one more time and adds, “You have until the end of this song…”

And then, as if by fate, the opening notes of Bon Jovi stream out from over the speakers.

“Auston,” Mitch says, turning to Auston with a look on his face to convey, _You know what’s about to go down._ Auston just laughs a little, knowing _exactly_ what’s coming, and he hides his face in his hand. That’s unacceptable, so Mitch sings out loud enough for the both of them, “ _Tommy used to work on the docks…_ ”

“You’re the worst,” Auston tells him. The rest of the guys groan at Mitch’s antics, but Auston’s still smiling. He’s not singing, not yet, but Mitch knows how he is. Auston’s shy sometimes.

“Auston, this is _our song_ ,” he points out, and it’s not at all, except for how they both like it.

Beau interjects, “I don’t even have a song with my girlfriend, and we’ve been dating for two years.”

“And it’s not really very romantic,” Jeff adds.

“I’m ignoring both of you you,” Mitch tells them, and when the chorus starts up, Mitch can’t help but sling an arm around Auston’s shoulders. His pint glass is still in his hand; there’s not enough beer in it to slosh out over the rim and onto Auston, but even if there were, Auston wouldn’t care. Mitch sings loudly, “ _Whoa, we’re halfway there!_ ”

He points at Auston with both hands, signalling for him to take over, but Auston betrays him by just laughing a little more and saying, “Oh my god.”

So Mitch tries it again, sings, “ _Take my hand! We’ll make it, I swear!_ ”

“ _Whoa-_ oh!” Auston finally sings, half-assed and clearly humoring Mitch. “ _Livin’ on a prayer_!”

Mitch cheers, mostly because he was able to get Auston to sing, but he cheers for Auston, too, for doing it. That’s not really Auston’s style, being loud and over-the-top; even with his cellys, he’s a little bit quieter, a little bit more restrained. Mitch likes that about him, maybe because all Mitch does is talk, and opposites attract. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with that. Maybe he just loves Auston, just because.

Thinking about it like that, Mitch wonders what the fuck he was worried about for all those years. 

Like, Auston’s his best friend, and maybe they won’t work out. Maybe Mitch won’t shut up or Auston won’t speak up, or maybe Mitch will want to join a firm in Toronto and Auston will want to move back to the States. Maybe they’ll wake up one day wanting different things; maybe they’ll wake up different people. Or maybe not.

Maybe there are firms everywhere, or maybe Auston likes Canada just as much as the U.S. Maybe they’re lucky, having found each other already, and Mitch’ll never be with another person again. 

None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what happens down the line, because Mitch isn’t going anywhere, and neither is Auston. It doesn’t matter where they live, not if they’re still friends, same as it doesn’t matter how quiet Auston is in comparison, not when Mitch can hear all the things he’s not saying in the silence.

Like now, for instance: Auston’s looking at Mitch and thinking, _Idiot._

“You’re such an idiot,” Auston says, and his smile makes Mitch smile back.

And that’s how Mitch knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so in typical Pond Ice slash Lux over-the-top fashion, here are a ton of links that you all already know about, because you’re way better at fandom than I am:
> 
> Mitch and Auston in [terrible matching fedoras](https://twitter.com/NHL/status/811011864855449600) and Mitch [lining the inside of his suit jacket with one of his hockey jerseys](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/162124355442/hail-to-the-goalies-mitch-his-custom-made-suit)
> 
> Taylor Hall and his terribad [Sun's Out, Guns Out tank](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/46212765905)
> 
> Jeff Skinner [knowing the JoBros](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/47373943458) all thanks to his four sisters
> 
> Brady/Jimmy/Kevin in [One Bite, Everybody Knows The Rules](http://www.barstoolsports.com/boston/barstool-pizza-review-prince-street-pizza-featuring-kevin-hayes-jimmy-vesey-and-brady-skjei-of-the-new-york-rangers/) and [El Pres's Goalie Challenge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeJ_-h9o3Xk)
> 
> Also, Kev [kicking Brady in the face](http://www.foxsports.com/nhl/story/watch-brady-skjei-take-skate-face-rangers-teammate-121416)
> 
>  
> 
> [Dylan's bleached hair](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/161446317367)
> 
>  
> 
> My future husband, [the human dumpster.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/162021881271/siriuslyilluminaeted-chris-kreider-a-human) But like, in a good way. And obviously, [that time he killed Carey Price.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G4IdpqvYtM)
> 
>  
> 
> [Ptichye Moloko](http://natashaskitchen.com/2011/11/08/veras-ptichye-moloko-recipe-birds-milk/)
> 
>  
> 
> [Extra Butter.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/162131288247/softmarner-extra-butter) Can anyone explain this brand? No? Okay.
> 
>  
> 
> [Auston's four goals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUVmcx0wO_Q)
> 
>  
> 
> And of course, [Mitch and Auston singing to Bon Jovi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbbCqqjnRIY)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] The Inevitable Decline of the No Sad, Big Smile Break-Up Service, by luxover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12280992) by [lotts (LottieAnna)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LottieAnna/pseuds/lotts)




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